WILKES-BARRE -- Since free ice was extremely tough to come by Saturday night in all three zones of a tightly contested game, Keith Aucoin said he was shocked to get plenty of time to pick his spot on goalie Brad Thiessen.

The Hershey Bears centerman, comfortably set up alone in the left circle, zinged home a power-play shot at 3:33 of the third period that was the game-winner in a 3-2 victory over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at Mohegan Sun Arena.

“I haven’t had that much time against this team in three years,” Aucoin said. “I was kind of shocked. I was trying to look to pass first. The D-man played it really good and I saw a little opening above his glove, and I was able to get it there.”

Hershey, which opened the 2011-12 season with a 3-2 win at Binghamton Friday, has started with two straight road triumphs like the 2008-09 Calder Cup club.

“You talk about never having a passenger,” Bears head coach Mark French said. “I thought we had 20 guys who all contributed.”

The Bears and Baby Pens played an intense, close-checking contest in which scoring chances were hard to find.

WBS held a slight shots advantage (25-23). Both power plays went 1-for-6.

“You can tell by the number of shots,” Bears winger Matt Ford said. “Both teams played well defensively. I thought it kind of shows, being their opening night, they obviously came out hard, too.”

Given that, Ford’s seemingly harmless pitch-in from the half-wall outside the right circle in the first, which got past Thiessen (20 saves), loomed large. It gave Hershey a 2-1 lead at 15:47 just 20 seconds after a Brian Gibbons short-hander had tied it 1-1 for WBS.

“I was surprised,” Ford said. “I don’t think he was ready for it.

“[Boyd] Kane was right in front of the net. I was hoping for a rebound. That was my first thought. It kind of had eyes, I guess.”

Said Thiessen: “It’s obviously a shot I gotta stop, especially after we score a goal like that. A little bit of a screen, but nothing that should prevent me from stopping that puck.”

Kyle Greentree opened the scoring for Hershey. Niko Dimitrakos scored a power-play goal on goalie Dany Sabourin (23 saves) for WBS early in the second that tied it 2-2.

Aucoin’s goal was Hershey’s first power-play tally of the season.

“He’s not a guy who likes to shoot the puck from any area,” Thiessen said, “so I think he was waiting as long as he could to make a play backdoor. I was patient and stayed with him, and he beat me with a good shot.”

Indeed, Aucoin’s patented PP move is to pass to a triggerman in the right circle. This time, he received a pass from Ryan Potulny.

“I told him to get it to me early in the season,” Aucoin joked, “and I’ll get him back as the season progresses.”

In two games, the Bears already have showcased their depth and flexibility.

Six different players have accounted for their six goals.

In changes from the Binghamton game to the WBS game, Potulny moved from center to left wing, Chris Bourque moved from left wing to right wing and Cody Eakin moved from left wing to center. And the defense pair of Dmitry Orlov and Julien Brouillette flip-flopped, with Orlov moving from left D to right and Brouillette moving from right to left.

“Defensively, we played to our system a lot better [against WBS],“ French said.

Hershey and WBS are scheduled to play 11 more times during the regular season.

“For it to be that intense and that well-played by both teams,” French said, “we should be in for some competitive games this year.”

Aucoin said it felt like the ice was shrinking.

“You’d get the puck and there’s a guy on you,” he said. “You’ve got to chip it in and go get it. There wasn’t many odd-man rushes.

“It shows the type of team we have. We did the same thing. We got in deep and we were working down low and getting chances. It shows we can play with skill, but we also can play with grit.”

NOTEBOOK

Forwards Andrew Carroll, Mattias Sjogren and Christian Hanson started the game, along with the D-pair of Patrick Wellar and Danny Richmond. “To credit the Wilkes-Barre team, they always seem to come out really well out of the gate,” French said. “Basically, we just wanted to put five guys on the ice that we thought would come out of the gate, as well, and we did.”

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